People in Europe still find it difficult to cope with the effects of the financial and economic crisis still. This is a well-known fact and has been confirmed repeatedly by various sides. Now, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in cooperation with the EU Commission, has upheld this in a report and demonstrated that in particular the middle class has not only been badly affected but that it has also shrunk, just like its share in the collected income. However, thanks to social partnership, mechanisms of wage determination and wage negotiations there were also positive examples.

The final version of CETA, the agreement between EU and Canada, is adopting the new EU approach with regard to investments - EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and the Canadian Minister of International Trade, Chrystia Freeland let it be known this week.

This new approach, which would be consistent with the TTIP proposal by the EU from November 2015, is already an integral part of the recently completed Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Vietnam.

This week, a very well attended high-calibre event on the subject of conflict minerals, jointly organised by AK, ÖGB and IG Metall took place in Brussels.

This week was dominated by TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the USA and the EU. Because apart from a three-day meeting of international NGOs in Brussels, who are dealing with the issue, and the appearance of Cecilia Malmström, who among other visited the Chamber of Labour Vienna (AK), the 12th round of TTIP negotiations was also taking place in Brussels. The negotiators met behind closed doors and continued their negotiations on the trade agreement, which is to be finalized by the end of the year.

AK EUROPA has already reported that the Commission announced a new attempt in its October 2015 communication to further expand the single market in Europe. A hearing on this subject has taken place this week. Based on the report on the Commission’s Single Market Strategy by Lara Comi, numerous experts were invited to this meeting to enter into a dialogue with the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

- Participatory economy

This Monday, it was once again time for ÖGB and AK to officially declare the political year 2016 in Brussels open. To mark the occasion, they invited guests to the New Year's Reception on the premises of the Permanent Representation of Austria to the EU. The event, which was well attended, focused, apart from trade union demands of the year, in particular on the various crises and the pressure for liberalisation. These have to be mastered jointly, and in the interest of the citizens.

In January, the Commission declared war on the tax fraud committed by multinationals. Pierre Moscovici, the Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, has entered into a dialogue with the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Is there a danger of the current proposals being watered down?

What is the Anti Tax Avoidance Package?

After in autumn of last year the Commission had presented the new trade and investment strategy of the EU, this week a working document on a new forward-looking and innovative future strategy on trade and investment was debated in the Trade Committee of the European Parliament. Also once again discussed were TiSA und TTIP; apart from that a new study “Comparison of the EU service offers for the TTIP and TiSA negotiations” by “CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research“ was presented.

The plan is to pass the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA) and to conclude the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the USA before the end of the year. Opponents are sceptical of the positive prognoses and in a position to base their criticism on a number of studies.

The discussion about the growing gap between manufacturer specifications in their sales brochures and real-world fuel consumption and emissions of new cars has started again. In addition to the fixing of tests by a big manufacturer of passenger cars, an approval procedure for tests is under suspicion which calculates – with a lot of “flexibility” – standard consumption levels significantly be-low real-world consumption levels, which allows car manufacturers to easily stay below the CO2 requirements of the European Union.